Doctor Syringe
by ShadowWeasel
Summary: Amy Rose has been begging to see the new horror movie "Doctor Syringe" for ages, and Shadow is finally deciding to trust her judgement and go with her to watch it. But when a mysterious, hooded figure stalks them on their trip to and from the movies, the terror that is Doctor Syringe comes alive, sending the couple on a fight for their lives.
1. Chapter 1

Of all the nights to become an insomniac…

The moonlight bled through the blinds, and the rain pelted the glass like hailstones. I watched each drop of freezing water stab against the window as though the storming night wanted to kill me. My scarlet eyes contrasted with the indigo hue of the night sky, and I could make out a shard of my reflection within the glossy, wet pane.

For a split-second, I recalled the horror stories about mirrors, how looking within oneself could prove fatal. Perhaps there was a demon behind the glass, waiting for me to let my guard down. Just biding its time for the right moment to strike.

Its jagged, wretched claws would pierce the crystalline, still air and shatter the window with one swipe, and then the beast would follow. Sharp, blood-red irises would meet mine and watch the life drain from my body as its horrible nails impaled themselves through my torso. The blood would rush from my body, and I would either die from the shock and blood loss or the terrible asphyxiation as I choked to death on my own blood.

Call me paranoid, but I decided not to come any closer to the ghostly window.

Lightning flickered and thunder crashed, and an ethereally blue light was cast upon the flooded ground. That was when I saw it.

He was standing motionless in the downpour, the water coursing down his metallic body and pooling beneath him. Luminescent eyes the color of red glared at me in the dimming moonlight. His claws had the faintest hint of rust creeping along them, mysteriously reminiscent of bloodstains on steel. There was only a millisecond of illumination provided by the roaring lightning, and he made use of it.

His bony, silver arm shot forward and extended towards me to its full length, and a serrated blade that I can only assume was a finger or talon jabbed outward and into my direction. Like he was marking me for death, or perhaps claiming my soul for reaping.

Then the lightning vanished, and with it, so did he.

"I watched you die," I thought aloud, speaking quietly to myself. "You can't be him."

But whatever I saw that night, it had looked exactly like him. Exactly like Metal Sonic.

"What are you thinking about, Shadow?"

I awoke from my trance with a start, and my heart was beating at the pace of a fully-automatic weapon. But it slowed when I realized it had only been a memory. Hell, even the memory was probably just a nightmare anyway.

"Nothing," I reassured. "I was just daydreaming. We were doing something?"

"Picking movies to go see," the pink hedgehog reminded me. Then she poked the paper to show me which one she wanted.

I remembered what we had been doing, and I leaned forward to read the title. I cringed.

"This one?"

"Yes."

"This is the one you want to see?"

"I said yes, didn't I, Shadow?"

I sighed and rubbed my temples wearily. "Amy, we both know how you get when we watch horror movies."

"Now just what is that supposed to mean?" she snapped, her brow furrowing as she glared at me childishly.

I rolled my eyes. "It means you don't handle horror well… at all."

Amy Rose crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. "Shadow, when are you going to start listening to me? I said I wanted to watch this movie, and I want to watch this movie." One of her gloved fingers prodded at the newspaper article detailing movie times.

I sighed again and looked at the title of the movie just to make sure I had read it correctly. "Doctor Syringe," I read aloud, "a tale of extreme terror and mystery."

"Doesn't that sound scary?" she asked me eagerly. Her hands balled into fists out of sheer excitement.

I agreed. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

"I read the book," she argued. "It wasn't _that _bad."

"Wait," I stopped her. "Was that the book you were reading that night when I scared you?"

"You didn't scare me," she stated matter-of-factly. "You surprised me. You know better than to sneak up on me, Shadow."

I remembered that night. Amy had been sitting quietly on the couch, deeply involved in a book that, at the time, I did not know the name of. When I went to ask what she was reading, she shrieked loud enough to break glass.

But I knew that there was no arguing with a girl like Amy once she set her mind to something. And it was customary to let the girlfriend choose the movie, wasn't it? Or was that dinner? I'd have to ask her that later. This dating-thing was a difficult skill to master.

"I'll pick up the tickets," I finally said. "Then afterwards, we can go get dinner somewhere."

Amy beamed at me, "Thank you! I just know you'll love this movie."

I nodded halfheartedly. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. She did seem really eager to watch this movie, so she must have known exactly what it was about and that she wouldn't get scared. Of course, she had lied to me before. Stubborn girl…

As I exited the house and put on my jacket to brave the chilly, autumn weather, I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to face it, but whatever it might have been had disappeared. The only things alive I could see were the people wandering the lengths of the sidewalk, and a man next door who was raking up clumps of red, yellow, and brown leaves. He was wearing a grey, almost black hoodie that covered up his face, and all that I could make out were two ruby-red eyes. He turned to me from his yard and waved a gloved hand in my direction.

I waved back hesitantly. Just my imagination, I told myself. It was just a bad dream.


	2. Chapter 2

Deep shades of grey and black painted the darkening sky as the clouds rolled towards us at a slow but steady pace, like a psychopath with a knife who was approaching his victim with intent to kill. Low, foreboding thunder rumbled in the distance.

"Shadow, aren't you coming?"

I turned to Amy, who was wearing her favorite denim jacket and olive-green skirt, beckoned to me from the doorway to the theatre. She opened the door and looked at me anxiously.

"Yeah," I reassured, "yeah, I'm coming."

We walked inside and flashed our tickets, not bothering to buy popcorn or soda on our way into the pitch-black showing room. The commercials hadn't even started yet, I noted as we took our seats in the middle of the center row. I instinctively wrapped an arm around Amy as the lights dimmed and became even darker.

"So," I whispered, "what is 'Doctor Syringe' even about?"

Amy glanced at me with glimmering eyes, like a child's eyes as they were about to tell you all about their day at kindergarten. "It's about this guy who was a doctor, but then he failed a heart surgery and accidently killed the patient. Because he's so distraught, he goes insane and starts injecting everyone with this stuff that makes them go crazy like him, and then…"

She suddenly clapped her hands in my face and succeeded in making me jump in my seat. "Then he kills them!" she finished.

And everyone called _me_ Goth. I was shocked to see Amy get so excited about a crazy ex-doctor who killed people for fun. "Sounds interesting," I admitted.

A trailer for a new comedy about bad parenting or something came onscreen, and I decided to pass the time by glancing around the theatre and daydreaming. There were virtually no other people in the room with us; an ideal setting in which to view a horror flick. But in the left corner of the very back row sat what looked like a hedgehog in a grey hoodie.

Grey hoodie? Was it the same man who had been raking leaves before? Improbable, but not impossible. I brushed it off as an odd coincidence, but I decided to keep an eye on the potential stalker.

Then the movie began. It opened with a grainy video of a syringe shattering on concrete, and a woman screamed as the liquid splashed across the pale ground. "Doctor Syringe," the glass spelled in frightening text. Charming.

I heard a virtually silent whirring from the corner of the theatre, and I cast a wary glance back at the hedgehog in the hoodie. He glanced back at me suddenly, and I caught a glimpse of his blood-red eyes. They were literally burning crimson in the darkness of the showing room. He raised his hand to me and waved slowly.

I quickly turned back around.

"Doctor? You look terrible, are you alright?"

"I'm perfectly fine, Denise. However, you look a little sickly. Might I interest you in some of my medicine?"

"Doctor, what are you doing with that syringe? Doctor… _doctor_!"

The screen let out a girlish scream as the insane man pierced a woman's throat with a large needle. Blood gushed and splattered the camera.

Amy jumped and grabbed my arm in a vice-grip, squealing quietly.

I put my hand on hers and sighed to myself. When was this movie going to end?

"Peter! My God, man, what have you done to Denise?"

"The patient is simply under the influence of a special anesthetic I've developed. Nothing to be concerned about, Gerry."

"Peter, you damned fool! Snap out of it!"

"Perhaps, you'd like a taste, Gerry. A taste of the future of medicine!"

Doctor Syringe lunged forward, cackling as he did so, and punctured Gerry's wrist with a syringe full of blue liquid. Gerry howled in pain and reeled backwards, slamming against a chest of drawers and collapsing to the ground.

"My… m-my vision…"

"It's a wonderful new pain-reliever I created. Don't worry, Gerry, I'm not going to feel a thing!"

"You bastard… Denise, wake up, Denise."

Doctor Syringe kept on laughing, and Amy inched ever-closer to my chest. Her nose was buried into my tuft of white hair.

I cast a curious look over at the man in the corner-seat. He didn't see me this time. Those vibrantly scarlet eyes were locked intently on the screen. Maybe he was a horror-geek. Maybe he wasn't going to stalk us home after the movie. Maybe pigs can fly.

"Peter, you have to stop this madness."

"The doctor isn't here right now… but if you'd like to make an appointment, I'm sure we can pencil you in."

"Damn it, man! Have you lost your mind? My… my eyes are going… I-I can't see…"

The man called Gerry tumbled and moaned in pain as the murdering medicine-man came closer to the screen, his hideous smile spreading wider and wider across his face.

"I… am… Doctor Syringe!"

The sharp end of a needle suddenly flew towards the screen and pierced the camera lens. Glass shattered and snapped as the credits rolled.

What a waste of time, I thought to myself, standing and getting ready to leave. "Show's over," I announced to Amy, who was apparently frozen to the seat in fear.

I tucked my hands into my pockets and sighed. I had warned her. Did she listen? No…

I turned around and stretched my legs before exiting the row and waiting for my petrified girlfriend to catch up. That's when I saw the hoodie-wearing creep from before leaving the theatre. He didn't even spare me a farewell glance as he pushed the doors open and exited. I breathed a sigh of relief. One less thing to worry about. Just my imagination.


	3. Chapter 3

It was raining by the time we left the theatre. Ice-cold drops pounded on the cement with the rhythm of an assault rifle as the wind threw the water against the concrete with an incredible force. Puddles and ponds were already beginning to form, and the center of the parking lot was developing its own parody of a lake as we walked.

I noticed Amy was shivering, but whether it was the fault of the rain or the movie she had just seen, I could not determine. Either way, I put my arm around her body and held her close as the storm raged on.

"Where do you want to go eat?" I asked as we marched through rivers that had spawned as I spoke.

She shook her head vigorously, tossing lukewarm rainwater around that had once clung to her bangs. "I'm not hungry," she replied.

We waded through bubbling pools until we arrived upon the relatively dry shore that was the sidewalk. I shrugged and started walking the poor girl home.

And then, there he was. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hoodie-man, cloaked in a veil of mist and darkness. Those damned eyes locked with mine, like he had intended to let me see him.

I tightened my grip around Amy and walked a little faster.

The guy was watching us as we sped up, and he was leaning against the wall of the theatre-building with what I think was his idea of little interest. His hands were deep inside of his pockets, and I couldn't make out his intentions by looking at his bulky hoodie.

"Shadow, slow down. I can't walk that fast."

I couldn't hear her over the thudding of my heart slamming against my chest. The bastard was still just standing there, waving at me. _Waving at me_.

I let my paranoia control my movements. "Amy," I commanded, "get down."

She glanced at me with shock in her rain-stained eyes. "Shadow-?"

Then he was running towards us. No, not running. He was flying, hovering at us at breakneck speed. The rain left a trail of his silhouettes imprinted in the mist, and it almost looked like he was teleporting. As he raised his gloved hand, I could barely make out the shape of claws beneath the white fabric.

That was all I needed to see.

Without thinking, I shoved Amy aside and down into the cover of an alleyway. I stood my ground on the sidewalk, cementing myself in the rain and dark as the figure approached. My nine-millimeter Beretta wasn't hard to locate inside of my jacket. The gun was cocked and aimed just as the man I knew was Metal Sonic came within inches of my face. I didn't blink as my finger squeezed the trigger.

Five flaring explosions of amber basked the night in a hellish red glow as the pistol discharged five well-placed bullets. The first shot tore through the top of the hoodie he was wearing, ripping to the shreds his only disguise. The second blasted into his left eye, shattering the glass and chipping the indigo paint. The third and fourth shredded his mouth and nose to bits, and shards of silvery metal scraped against the wind as they flew. The fifth made sparks rocket from his chest as a gaping, black hole appeared where his heart would have been. Wires and fire spat from the places his metallic shell had been punctured.

And then the body that had once been sprinting skidded to a halt as Metal Sonic tumbled and rolled past me, the sounds of steel bounding off of rock echoing through the thunderous night. Smoke billowed from the barrel of my gun, and I tucked the device away as I turned to examine the body. The way it was angled and still and crackling, I could make a good guess that it was dead.

"Amy?" I asked, suddenly filled with concern for the girl I had so hurriedly pushed away. "Are you alright? Come on out."

The pink girl rose from her place on the ground and crept out to see me. Her face was a faint peach color, like she might have been catching a cold, but other than this, she seemed perfectly fine. Albeit a bit pissed-off.

"Don't push me like that," she huffed uselessly, knowing that I had probably just saved her life.

I brushed the wet dirt off of her sleeves and offered a smirk. "Sorry."

"So," she questioned, curious, "that was-?"

My frown returned with a vengeance. "We can talk later," I told her, "but now we should get moving."

Amy nodded quickly. "Right."

We took the long way home, walking all the way around the block simply to avoid the body I had left in my wake. But with someone as damned determined as Metal Sonic you can never be too careful. Perhaps it was just my imagination screwing with me again, but I was starting to regret not emptying my entire clip into the bastard's skull.


End file.
